What does this mean?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Given that there's a fill character, the ">" is, in fact, redundant. Had there not been a fill character, though, it makes, say, a "7" display as " 7" rather than as "7 ".

The '>' tells the formatter on which side to fill. The format "0>2s" fills with zeros on the left. If one uses "0<2s", then the zeros will be put on the right.

[BeccaPrice]

That matches my guess (bounces excitedly) I think I'm beginning to understand this!

now - what is the difference between the destination field being the title field, and the destination field being title_sort?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by chaley

The '>' tells the formatter on which side to fill. The format "0>2s" fills with zeros on the left. If one uses "0<2s", then the zeros will be put on the right.

Ah, thank you. I hadn't appreciated the distinction.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

now - what is the difference between the destination field being the title field, and the destination field being title_sort?

Some devices are able to distinguish between the title and how the title is to be sorted. For example, the title might be "The Ravens", which generally should sort under "R". In this case, title_sort would (probably) be "Ravens, The".

Do note that very few devices can use title_sort. Sonys can use it when computing collections, and it is possible that some newer Sonys also use it when sorting the display on the device.

[BeccaPrice]

one last question:

in the original rule, why is it ||) rather than |)|?

[HarryT]

The text after the first "|" is a PREFIX, which goes BEFORE the field value.
The text after the second "|" is a SUFFIX, which goes AFTER the field value.

either may be empty.

Thus you'll see in my rule I have:

{series:|| }

which means "if a series name is present, display the series name, followed by a space."

[BeccaPrice]

Originally Posted by chaley

Some devices are able to distinguish between the title and how the title is to be sorted. For example, the title might be "The Ravens", which generally should sort under "R". In this case, title_sort would (probably) be "Ravens, The".

Do note that very few devices can use title_sort. Sonys can use it when computing collections, and it is possible that some newer Sonys also use it when sorting the display on the device.

so for my kindle, it's best to use ->title then. I've got a Sony 350, but I don't use it much. Oddly, my hands tend to be too cold to use a touch screen easily, and using a stylus is a pain.